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Comment by acjohnson55 | Hacker News Reader

But isn't water a renewable resource?

Thermoelectric plants often change their local ecosystem by raising the temperature of natural water bodies used for cooling.

However, it doesn't have to. And in particular, as water becomes more constrained by growing population and climate change, using water the same way that it has in the past is becoming untenable.

Recent regulations are starting to end "once through" use of water this way, which is leading to the shut down of older plants that are close to the end of their lifespan anyway.

And then there are plants like this nuclear plant in Arizona which cools using treated sewage, which has almost zero impact:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generatin...

Afaik the arizona plant doesnt use sewage but grey water, from drains and canals and such. Large amounts of it, and it gets straight up evaporated. Grey water should ideally be remediated and used for irrigation, not just evaporated - not in desert regions at least.

We will need to use water resources better! There are options for doing that, but no way to make thermoelectric power plant use insignificant.

Sometimes and not everywhere. The problem with water is that there’s usually too much or to little in the spot you want it. For cooling purposes the water should be of particular quality (eg fresh), so building on the beach comes with its own problems.

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